Classic art, folk craft and multimodal strategies are increasingly becoming core concepts guiding
the reconsideration of how to make the study of art maintain students‘ interest in heritage traditions.
This article explores how formal modulation can refresh students´ interest in classical and folk art,
according to the intentional multimodal agreements into which they enter in lower secondary art
education. By multimodal agreements we mean negotiated framings of how different modes
(viewing, drawing, photography, video-making and -recording, sound recording, digital), tools and
roles are brought together as students engage with classical and folk artworks.
The design of the study is a mixed-method, quasi-experiment in urban schools with four whole
classes. In the experimental conditions, six-week teaching units revolved around multimodal
engagements where classical paintings and folk artefacts were combined with analogue and digital
production activities. Differential treatment group participants learned the same material via
conventional (mostly unimodal) teaching methods. Students‘ interest in classical and folk art was
tested before and after the intervention through a 24-item Likert-scale questionnaire targeting
cognitive curiosity, emotional engagement as well as behavioural intentions along with open-ended
questions and student multimodal products analysis.
Quantitative findings indicate significant and large gains in Global Interest & all subdimensions
for the experimental groups, while control subjects evince modest and non-significant shifts.
Qualitative findings suggest movements in respect of passive observation to active interpretation,
motivation from external compliance into more internalised efforts and the deconstruction of binary
perspectives on ―old versus modern‖ art as participants engage with hybrid cultural identifications
comprised of imagery reflecting classic and folk potential alongside digital aesthetics.